Meet Haggai Segal, Israel’s terrorist journalist

Translation of the tweet above: Prediction: In 30 years Amiram Ben Uliel is a respected newspaper editor in Israel. Chaim Levinson is a reporter for the Israeli daily, Ha’aretz. His beat is the West Bank.

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Haggai Segal is a respected Israeli journalist. He is editor of the right-wing national religious newspaper, Makor Rishon. In 1984, Segal admitted to planting two bombs which were directed at two West Bank mayors. Segal, who was a West Bank settler in his 20s was convicted of causing grievous harm and belonging to a Jewish terrorist organization, which operated in the West Bank and Jerusalem. He received a five-year sentence, of which he served two.

Amiram Ben Uliel, a young religious Israeli settler in his 20s, is currently in an Israeli prison, awaiting trial for throwing a bomb into a home in the West Bank village of Duma which killed three members of the family who lived there. It is alleged that he is part of a Jewish terrorist organization which operates in Israel, the West Bank and Jerusalem.

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I first became aware of Haggai Segal about eight months ago after noticing a sniping tweet (similar to the one above) that was sent about him by another Israeli journalist to the Twitter feed of his son, the well-known TV reporter, Amit Segal. About a month ago, my curiosity about the elder Segal led me to obtain a copy of his book about the Jewish Underground. I also followed him on Twitter until a response I sent, referring to his past crimes, led Segal to block me. When reading his twitter feed, which was not all that active, I was surprised that even journalists from so-called left-wing outlets, like Barak Ravid, treated him with great respect and affection. What follows is some of what I learned about Israel’s terrorist journalist.

In 1984 Haggai Segal was convicted of belonging to a terrorist organization, causing grievous harm, and possessing illegal firearms. Of the two bombs he planted, one blew off the foot of Karim Khalaf, the then mayor of Ramallah. A second, which was intended for the mayor of el Bireh, was discovered, but exploded when it was being deactivated, permanently blinding Suleiman Hirbawi, a Druze member of the Israeli Border Police.

The Jewish Underground, as Segal’s gang came to be known, was also responsible for blowing off both legs of the mayor of Nablus, Bassam Shakaa. They attacked the Islamic College in Hebron, randomly killing three students and injuring 33 others. The Underground devoted much effort to developing a plan and stockpiling weapons, some stolen from the army, in a plot to blow up the Dome of the Rock. They hoped that destroying the holy Muslim shrine would somehow inspire Israel to rebuild a Jewish Temple in its stead. These are just the crimes we know about this gang carrying out over the course of at least five years of operation.

Some of Segal’s co-conspirators were caught by police after planting five large bombs under five public buses in East Jerusalem. These bombs were set to explode at a time when they would have been full of Palestinian passengers. The explosives were deactivated by the General Security Services and arrests were made that led to the detention of other suspects including Segal.

Segal was sentenced to five years imprisonment, but only served two. His already light sentence was reduced as were those of all the other members of the Underground, due to intense public and political pressure. It appears that many Israelis did not think of Segal’s actions as a crime. This is a sentiment echoed by his two sons, who are also now journalists.

During his time behind bars, Segal wrote a history of the Jewish Underground and described his own role in it. The book, Dear Brothers: The West Bank Jewish Underground, was published in Hebrew in 1987 and then in an English translation a year later. The book is a paean to the members of the Underground and the tenets of the most extreme religious settler Zionism. Segal wrote that the result of blowing up the Dome of the Rock Mosque would be “purifying the Temple Mount.” (p.156, all page numbers refer to the English edition of Dear Brothers)

In the book Segal portrays much of the Israeli public and many politicians as sympathetic to the Underground. Among those he named as supporters was the late Prime Minister, Menachem Begin, who at one point ordered authorities not to investigate the Underground (p. 122). Segal quoted Raphael Eitan, who was Chief of Staff of the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF), as saying jokingly to one of the conspirators before any of the Underground had been arrested:

Turn your pockets inside out….. I can see the detonator wires sticking out… Come off it …. You think I don’t know? Are you joking with us? Next time you do something like this, coordinate it with us. Had we known we wouldn’t have evicted Dawasmeh and Milhem [two West Bank mayors, p. 120].

The entire gang of arrested conspirators served their prison time together and according to Segal, had the status of celebrities in and outside of prison. The long-time Israeli politician and career soldier, Binyamin Ben-Eliezar was mentioned as among their many frequent and admiring visitors (p. 122).

Although Segal has claimed that his role in the Underground only involved the bombing of the mayors, and that his participation was marginal, his book gives a completely different impression. In a 2013 interview published in the Israeli daily, Ma’ariv, and quoted below, the journalist/terrorist admitted that Dear Brothers did indeed give the impression that he had a significant role in the Underground, but now says that impression was incorrect. However, it is difficult not to come to the conclusion when reading the book that Segal was, at the very least, an accessory before the fact in the crimes committed.

The descriptions of his co-conspirators are glowing and his criticism of their crimes minimal. Any moral qualms are, in the end, justified by invoking the actions of the perceived enemy, the Palestinians. In the interview, almost 30 years after leaving prison, Segal is more restrained, but hardly penitent.

Ma’ariv — Do you have any regret today about the Jewish Underground?

Haggai Segal — Regret? The word “regret” is not exact. I have another way of looking at it.

M — Meaning?

HS — I said to the judge in court that I will not lie to him, and I won’t behave like some convicted criminal that begs for a pardon or expresses regret. However, from my point of view this was a one-time event. It isn’t something that is appropriate now.

M — Then no regret, but are you sorry that you were in the Underground?

HS — I wrote a book on the affair, “Dear Brothers.” It apparently magnified retroactively my participation with this group. And the truth is that my participation was marginal. I was involved in one episode, the attack on the mayors, who were evil doers without a doubt.

If the question is whether a private group should attack them [Palestinians?, ig], yes or no, then its seems the answer is no. It is not healthy for the country. In spite of this, I don’t have to mention to you, that when this happened, if you would have done a poll, you would have seen that most of the public didn’t like Basem al-Shakaa and Karim Khalaf. [My translation of a 2013 interview in Ma’ariv.]

Not exactly an expression of remorse that you would expect from a rehabilitated terrorist, is it?

The elder Segal has two sons who are also journalists. The older son, Arnon Segal, is a print journalist. He writes a weekly column about temple activism for the newspaper for which his father serves as editor. He is also a temple mount activist, who is a member of The Headquarters for Temple Movements (Hebrew Facebook page). These temple activists believe that a Jewish temple should be built on the present site of the Dome of the Rock, which is a 1300-year-old mosque, holy to Muslims all over the world.

Arnon is a frequent visitor to the al Aqsa plaza, the site of the Dome of the Rock and the al Aqsa Mosque. He conducts “tours” at the site, events that are considered provocative in the extreme by Palestinians. The “tours” often lead to violent confrontations between Palestinian worshippers and the Israeli police who guard the Jewish groups. Visits to the plaza by religious Jewish settlers, like Arnon Segal, have been said to be one of the major causes of the current Intifada.

Arnon has publicly stated that as a child there was much talk at home about rebuilding the Jewish temple. In other words, Arnon is a chip off the old block, and his insanity is further confirmed by the fact that he wants to sacrifice animals at the temple’s altar as was done in ancient times. He believes that the sacrifices will lead to a time of redemption, at least for himself and his Jewish compatriots.

The younger son, Amit Segal, is a rising star on Israeli television news. In a video interview with Mako News, (in Hebrew) a smiling and laughing Amit dismissed the fact that his father had been a violent criminal (begin 4 min and 50 sec.). When the interviewer insisted that growing up with a father in prison for a violent crime must have been traumatizing, Amit categorically denied that the status of his father as a convicted criminal ever caused him discomfort. Firstly, he said that there were other children his age that he knew who also had fathers in prison for their participation in the Underground. Secondly, he reminisced about the support his father had in his hometown of Ofra, as well as in much of Israel. Despite the smile and laugh, moments later Amit testily called the questions which continue to be directed toward him about his father’s lurid past, “bullshit” claiming they were just unwarranted personal attacks on him as a journalist. To Amit, what his father did to the Palestinian mayors was a justifiable political act. As he said to the interviewer: “it is not as if my father was in prison for embezzling money.”

This past July, Haggai Segal was appointed (Hebrew) by the right-wing Israeli Justice Minister, Ayelet Shaked, to a blue ribbon commission which will investigate incitement on the Internet. The purpose of the group, according to Shaked, is to protect public officials from threats and slander while safeguarding the right of the public to free speech. Despite some objections to appointing the elder Segal to the panel, including the resignation of one of the commission member in protest, Segal joined the commission. Edna Arbel, a former Head of the Supreme Court, who is the chairperson of the commission, had also expressed reservations about the Segal appointment, but in the end agreed to his inclusion.

Children should not be judged by the sins of their fathers and it is only natural for sons to protect their fathers from hurtful criticism. However, learning about Haggai, Amit and Arnon Segal you can only think the worst of the Jewish-Israeli society which affords the three of them a prominent and respected place in the social order.

Who knows? Maybe one day Amiram Ben Uliel will become the Israeli Minister of Communications.

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About Ira Glunts

Ira Glunts is a retired college librarian who lives in Madison, NY. His twitter handle is @abushalom

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9 Responses

The problem here is that the pro-Israel people are very plugged into the MSM, so their version of events always takes precedent. Mr. Segal is a typical example. His terror network is always referred to as the “Jewish underground,” not the “Jewish Terror Network.” Why? Because that is what the Israeli media called them and it got repeated by their supporters abroad till everyone was calling them that. Israeli government terminology always takes precedent as “fact.” Also embarrassing or bad behavior by Israeli Jews is downplayed as an “aberration” and is rarely repeated. Think about how many times you have heard about the “underground” in the media, now think about how many times you heard about Palestinians “dancing on the rooftops,” or “passing out candy” after a terror attack. It doesn’t matter that those things never happened because people like the Dersh make sure to spread them far and wide. And since they get to be on TV most of the time the truth gets buried. That’s why we need to keep plugging away at them.

The question I often ask myself when reading about the exploits of these “Underground” Zionist ” heroes “is “Were they born scumbags or did they have to practice ? ”

Same applies to the so called “Justices ” who meted out the piffling punishments and to the generality of Israeli Zionist Jewry who moan and wail at the scale and barbarity of”Arab terrorist” atrocities whilst at best turning a blind eye to those in their own community who have been and continue to be guilty of the same or worse.

What a truly perverted little cult colony the Land of Creation has become.

Thank God for the likes of Gideon Levy who bravely hold a candle for true Judaism.

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I was sitting with Karim Khalaf 2 years after his foot was blown off when he tossed me a copy of the Jerusalem Post. He said “look at how they are handling the people who did this to me?” In an articleThe Post quoted multiple members of the Knesset who wanted to treat Segal as a national hero and wanted him to be pardoned. The look of despair and sadness in this man’s eyes as his only crime was to be the Palestinian Mayor of Ramallah. He had told me he was very lucky that morning, since every other morning he had his daughters in his car with him.
But what the hell, it’s not as if Segal cheated on his taxes, he only blew up a Palestinian, so what is the big fuss about.

RE: “The younger son, Amit Segal, is a rising star on Israeli television news. In a video interview with Mako News, a smiling and laughing Amit dismissed the fact that his father had been a violent criminal. When the interviewer insisted that growing up with a father in prison for a violent crime must have been traumatizing, Amit categorically denied that the status of his father as a convicted criminal ever caused him discomfort. Firstly, he said that there were other children his age that he knew who also had fathers in prison for their participation in the Underground. Secondly, he reminisced about the support his father had in his hometown of Ofra . . .“ ~ Ira Glunts

[EXCERPT (Introduction, pages 3-4)] Ofra, the first settlement that was established by the Gush Emunim movement,1 is viewed by many as the flagship of the settlement enterprise in the West Bank. The special circumstances of its founding and the political significance of building a settlement in the heart of a densely-populated Palestinian area, some 24 kilometers east of the Green Line, among other things, gave Ofra this status.2 Although Ofra is one of the most blatantly ideological settlements, its members have managed to successfully integrate into Israeli society, and many political and ideological leaders of the settler population have established their homes there. In the words of Idith Zertal and Akiva Eldar, “Ofra…, which was established in trickery and on false pretexts, flourished into the heart of the Israeli consensus because of its respectable appearance, the settlers’ flagship institutions that were established there, and the mellifluous discourse of some of its better-known inhabitants.”3

However, this respectable facade conceals a problematic reality. As this report will show, some 60 percent of the built-up area of Ofra lies on land that is registered to Palestinians in the Land Registry. In addition, an area of jurisdiction has never been defined for Ofra, nor has a detailed outline plan been approved for it. Thus, the hundreds of housing units existing in Ofra were built without permits and in violation of the planning and building laws effective in the West Bank. Based on criteria adopted by the government of Israel in 2005, these facts render Ofra the largest unauthorized outpost in the West Bank.

In July 2007, Ha’aretz reported that “almost every third house in Ofra is built on privately-owned Palestinian land.”4 Almost a year later, the newspaper quoted Vice-Prime Minister Haim Ramon as commenting that “all 450 houses of Ofra… are built on privately-owned Palestinian land.”5 Claims of this kind – precisely because of their sweeping and inclusive nature – do not give a complete picture of the legal failures pertaining to Ofra. The present report provides a detailed analysis of the legal status of the built-up area of Ofra, and, as such, is the first to address this issue regarding the built-up area of an entire settlement.

The point of departure for the following discussion is that all the Israeli settlements in the West Bank are illegal under international humanitarian law. Over the years, Israeli governments have ignored this prohibition in choosing to establish settlements. However, they have always declared their commitment to complying with the local law that applies in the West Bank, which, they claim, lays out different principles.

The objective of the report is to put this declaration to the test. Accordingly, whereas previous reports by B’Tselem have addressed the legality of settlements under international humanitarian law, this report examines the legality of Ofra under the local law that applies in the West Bank, a combination of the Jordanian legislation, which is still in effect in the West Bank (hereafter: “the statute”), and the orders issued by the Israeli military commander (hereafter: “the military legislation”).

Testimonies given to B’Tselem indicate that, in recent years, settlers and the army have imposed harsh restrictions on access of Palestinian farmers to their land nearby Ofra, which controls hundreds of hectares in addition to its built-up area.6 However, the report focuses on the built-up area and only briefly discusses the extensive areas of farmland nearby.

The report opens with a short discussion of the illegality of all Israeli settlements under international humanitarian law, followed by a short overview of Ofra’s history and of the settlement’s nature and characteristics today. The second, and major, part examines various questions relating to the settlement’s legality under the local law.

NOTES:
1. Hagai Segal, Dear Brothers: History of the Jewish Underground (Keter Publishing, 1987), 34 [in Hebrew]. The Gush Emunim movement (Bloc of the Faithful), was founded in 1974 by Israeli settlers who claim a divine Jewish right to the West Bank and the Gaza Strip.
2. Gershon Shafat, a member of Gush Emunim, wrote that “Ofra symbolized for us the breakthrough to the Beit El and Samaria mountain ridge. Its location in the heart of the Arab villages north of Ramallah had great political significance, in that it deviated from the settlement conception that lay at the foundation of the Allon Plan.” Gershon Shafat, Gush Emunim: The Story Behind the Scenes (Beit El Library, 1995), 160 [freely translated]. See, also, Yehiel Admoni, A Decade of Discretion: Settlement beyond the Green Line 1967-1977 (Israel Galili Institute for the Study of Defensive Power – Yad Tabenkin/ Hakibbutz Hameuchad, 1992), 150 [in Hebrew].
3. Idith Zertal and Akiva Eldar, Lords of the Land: The War over Israel’s Settlements in the Occupied Territories, 1967-2004 (Nation Books, 2004), 33.
4. Akiva Eldar, “Demolition by Rapid Procedure,” Ha’aretz, 3 July 2007.
5. Akiva Eldar, “Ramon: All Houses of the Ofra Settlement were Built on Privately-Owned PalestinianLand,” Ha’aretz, 8 April 2008.

MY COMMENT: Keshev and Ir Amim and in Israel published an 79 page report on the Temple Movements back in 2013.*

* SEE: “Dangerous Liaison ~ The Dynamics of the Rise of the Temple Movements And Their Implications” | Researched and written by Yizhar Be’er with editing by Tomer Persico | Translated into English by Shoshana London Sappir with English editing by Betty Herschman | Published by Ir Amim and Keshev | March 1, 2013

[EXCERPT] The significance of the Temple Mount in Jewish tradition requires little elaboration. Its paramount importance is reflected in Jewish law, prayer and holiday traditions. However, since its destruction, the Temple has remained largely symbolic—an object of longing, deferred to a seemingly unattainable future era, and framed by a system of restrictions and rituals that moderate preoccupation with the question of its reconstruction. It is precisely because of the sanctity of the Temple Mount complex—the site of the First and Second Temples—that there is a halachic prohibition against visiting the Mount, as differentiated from the case of the ritual sacrifice service, which found a substitute in public prayer in synagogues.

The Islamic name given to the Temple Mount complex is Haram al-Sharif—for Muslims, the third holiest site in Islam after Mecca and Medina. The Islamic Waqf, responsible for oversight of the complex, is appointed by Jordan and its status is anchored in the peace agreement between Israel and the Hashemite Kingdom. The Islamic shrines located on the Mount—the Al-Aqsa Mosque and the Dome of the Rock— have become fundamental symbols of Palestinian nationality that unify Muslims and Christians, both secular and religious. In recent decades, the strengthening of Islamic movements has led to the elevation of the site’s importance in the Muslim world. At the same time, elements within these movements have increased their tendency to deny the Jewish people’s historic attachment to the Temple Mount.
The religious and political conflict surrounding the Temple Mount/Haram al-Sharif has provoked violence and bloodshed in the past and continues to constitute one of the central obstacles to resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. When the status of the Temple Mount came onto the agenda between Israel and the Palestinians during the Oslo peace process, Israel raised the possibility of permitting Jews the right to pray on the Mount. At no stage of the negotiations did Palestinians indicate willingness to discuss concessions regarding an exclusive Muslim presence on the Mount. In unofficial talks, Palestinian representatives advised Israeli representatives not to raise the suggestion of granting rights of worship on the complex to Jews, a development that would have the potential to elevate conflict over the Mount to the status of a religious war. Ultimately, the question of a settlement on the Temple Mount/Haram al-Sharif became a central stumbling block in the negotiations, which have been dormant for more than a decade, 8 Ir Amim | Keshev between the Taba conference in 2001 and the recent resumption of negotiations in 2013.1

The objection to any arrangement granting prayer rights to Jews on the Temple Mount/ Haram al-Sharif recurs in statements made by various Muslim religious and public figures. For example, Sheikh Akrama Sabri, President of the High Muslim Council and former Mufti of Jerusalem, has claimed that the area of the Al-Aqsa Mosque belongs exclusively to Muslims and denies any Jewish rights to the area. Sabri has firmly resisted any agreement allowing Jews to pray in the Temple Mount/Haram al-Sharif plaza2 . Muhammad Hussein, the Mufti of Jerusalem, and other religious figures have made similar claims.

Attempts to forcibly realize Jewish worship rights on the Mount therefore constitute an explosive religious and political issue. In recent years unofficial and private Jewish organizations have been progressively escalating activities surrounding the Mount. Being careful to note the differences between them, the activists and organizations promoting these ideas will henceforth be referred to as “the Temple movements.” These groups receive support and assistance from government bodies, as well as the encouragement of a public political lobby. Their purpose is to raise awareness and stress the importance of the Mount and the Temple for the Jewish people today. These developments have considerable public significance.

This report will examine the significance of Temple movement activists’ demands and actions, exploring the people and groups behind efforts to change current arrangements on the Mount and the network of ties between these groups and the Israeli establishment, including the provision of public, political and economic assistance.

The decision to focus on Temple group activists and their ties to the establishment was precipitated by the considerable expansion of Jewish circles with the overriding objective of advancing construction of the Third Temple while harming Islamic holy sites, or working, as an interim goal, toward a unilateral change of arrangements on the Temple Mount/ Haram al-Sharif. Their deepening ties to the Israeli political and official establishment have only exacerbated concerns. It should be stated here that this document does not intend to review Islamic activities to expand prayer areas on the Mount, the archeological damage caused by such expansion or Islamic denial of the historic connection between the Jewish people and the site. Neither does it intend to examine the activities of fundamentalist Christian groups, who also have motives related to the status of the Mount.

There is mutual and reinforcing interaction between Muslim and Jewish trends: the Temple movements bolster themselves with quotes from Muslims and Arabs who negate Jewish attachment to the site and the Temple while Islamic movements buttress their arguments by stressing Jewish threats to worship arrangements and Islamic shrines on the Mount. Islamic construction work undertaken without archaeological supervision, and Israeli archaeological excavations and construction plans surrounding the Mount, also intensify mutual suspicion, accusations and pretexts for action. This feedback loop escalates the discourse and actions taken by both sides and strongly influences decision makers from both camps. Though Arab and Islamic activity has attracted public interest and government response, we suggest that the considerable dangers posed by the Jewish Temple movements, their goal of achieving a radical unilateral change in the system of arrangements on the Temple Mount and the problematic nature of government collaboration with these groups has not received the public attention it merits. The immediate dangers threatened by these civil and political activities, and the role of the Israeli administration in exacerbating them, provide a strong rationale for turning the spotlight on the Temple movements.

After Israel conquered the Mount in 1967, a status quo was reached between Israel and the Muslim Waqf governing worship arrangements on and around the Mount. Since then, Jewish Temple activists have attempted on several occasions to physically vandalize Islamic shrines on the Mount in order to promote the construction of the Third Temple and the process of redemption as they understand it. In the last three decades, there has been a considerable increase in movement-sponsored public education activities and dozens of organizations have arisen with the goal of raising public awareness about the importance of the Temple Mount and its reconstruction. These groups are backed by an increasing number of public figures, Knesset members and state institutions. It should be stressed that while most of these groups’ activities are legal, the conflict of interests raised by the cooperation and funding they receive from government bodies cannot be taken for granted.

The Temple movements promote an ideology that places the Temple at its center—not as a symbol or distant goal but as a real object of political, religious and cultural actions to force a fundamental change of the existing arrangements on the Mount. For these groups, building of the Temple is an action plan and a theological and practical operational order. Considering the Temple Mount/Haram al-Sharif’s religious, cultural, political and symbolic status, and in light of past attempts to alter the status quo, a forced and unilateral change of arrangements violates the right of Muslims to determine worship arrangements for their holy sites and therefore has a tremendously explosive potential.
While state authorities may exercise their prerogative to support movements and organizations operating within the law, they must do so with transparency and with full responsibility for the potential consequences of their actions. Furthermore, with regard to educational activities, the historic and halachic status of the Mount must be presented comprehensively and without bias, acknowledging the Mount’s sanctity and status in Islamic tradition and Israel’s duty to defend the religious aspirations of Muslims—an acknowledgement clearly not reflected in Temple movements’ activities. This report does not aim to present a normative, political, religious or moral approach to the question 10 Ir Amim | Keshev of Jewish or Muslim rights to the Temple Mount/Haram al-Sharif, nor to advocate a particular political solution or take a stand on questions related to the Temple and its reconstruction, whether by man or by God. The goal is to present data collected about the growing activity of the Temple movements and to evidence their connection to Israeli government and public bodies.

The material on which this report is based was collected from four primary sources: field research; monitoring of sectarian and general media coverage; a literature review; and interviews with key players and activists.

P.S. The above excerpt from “Dangerous Liaison ~ The Dynamics of the Rise of the Temple Movements And Their Implications” constitutes the entirety of its introduction on pages 7-10 (titled “Introduction:Temple Mount/Haram al-Sharif as a Focal Point of the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict”).

Also, my comment was to have at the the following at the top.

RE: “The elder Segal has two sons who are also journalists. The older son, Arnon Segal, is a print journalist. He writes a weekly column about temple activism for the newspaper for which his father serves as editor. He is also a temple mount activist, who is a member of The Headquarters for Temple Movements. These temple activists believe that a Jewish temple should be built on the present site of the Dome of the Rock, which is a 1300-year-old mosque, holy to Muslims all over the world.” ~ Ira Glunts

Originally, I had all of these things taken care of, but there was a slight mishap in posting, and I did not have enough time to fully repair everything within the 10 minutes..

The main present travail around the Temple is the pressure for women’s prayer with a Reforn presence, and the latest bright idea is to open up another section of wall for the purpose but this may never happen, Not long before reading Lewis’s remarks I had come across an article in Israel Hayom explaining that opposition comes from three sources, all of which it describes as influential: leaders of Jewish Orthodoxy, archaeologists and the Islamic Waqf, backed up by Jordan. Their objections are based on prohibition under religious law, damage to an important site where stones from the ruined Temple survive, decreased recognition of the site’s importance in Islam. The description of the Waqf as influential even now – and this was affirmed in a confident tone, as if no one would dispute it – seems to support the view that the Temple activists, on the other end of a certain spectrum, have by contrast no support of any significance – Israel is just not ready to have the Temple back and doesn’t want to think about High Priests and sacrificed sheep.

Rebuild the Temple?
I used to sing in a synagogue choir. Part of the afternoon service for Yom Kippur is reading about (since we can’t carry them out any more) the services in the Temple. Animal sacrifices! Feh. People want to revive this stuff? Good riddance of bad rubbish.

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